When was the last time you lost yourself in a story? Do you know what Hogwarts looks like? What do you remember about Anne's P.E. Island? How about Narnia? Do you have a feel for that world?

Because children want to be taken away from the everyday and immersed in strange, faraway lands, world building is one of the most important skills a children's writer can develop. And, yes, it can be developed.

Homegrown Metaphors and Similes

Go to the character's world to find metaphors and similes for use in the book.

Shannon Hale does this beautifully. Here's the first paragraph of her, Princess Academy:

Miri woke to the sleepy bleating of a goat. The world was as dark as eyes closed, but perhaps the goats could smell dawn seeping through the cracks in the house’s stone walls. Though still half-asleep, she was aware of the late autumn chill hovering just outside her blanket, and she wanted to curl up tighter and sleep like a bear through frost and night and day.

Mire lives in a primitive place. The goats are in the stone house with the people. And so the world is as dark as eyes closed. It's not as dark as a room when the electricity goes off. Miri's world doesn't have electricity. It's not as dark as midnight. Miri is a small girl not still up at midnight. It's as dark as eyes closed. That's the perfect simile for giving us a glimpse into Miri's world and into Miri, herself.

This is how Miri thinks.

Dark as eyes closed.

We hear her voice, and we get a glimpse of her age and of her world.

Miri also wants to sleep like a bear. Bears sleep through the winter and Miri knows it, so her mind automatically goes there when she thinks about how she wants to sleep. (The lyrical language, "frost and night and day" is a topic for another article.)

What if Miri thought that she'd like to sleep like a princess in a bed with silk sheets and down blankets? That would make us think her world was quite a bit different from the world Shannon Hale has portrayed in the opening of Miri's book.

So if your character lives in Paris he might wake up feeling as fresh as a warm-from-the-oven crescent rather than as fresh as a daisy. Because Paris is filled with the smell of fresh-baked pastries every morning.

Or your character may live in Hawaii. She might think another character is as rude as a Haole.

Get into your character's head, see her world, and let her think and speak from that world she knows so well.

This is a simple way to suck your readers into your story world. Try it and see if it doesn't transform your writing.

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